I thought the pilot was decent enough and actually got better as the episode went along. A little cliched, and the wrap up a little to simplistic. But I'll give it a chance. It had some "fun" humor. Maybe a little too much. At least it was tasteful. Which is a miracle nowadays. Worst part of the pilot was the immediate product placement for Marvel Toys not 30 seconds into the story.

The product placement you found annoying didn't bother me at all or really come off as product placement. I liked the cast overall and so I am looking forward to another episode. I think for now the tech geek with the scanner robots is my favorite. Such a cutie.

Anyway I enjoyed it, it was a little light but then it was setting the show up. Coulson sounds like he is a clone as was suspected.

The gags hit the mark for me, even ones like "I'm not Hermione". Fitz & Simmons are very enjoyable, though I struggled to understand them a couple of times (this despite me being British). Can't imagine how American's are coping with the accents.

Definitely had the Whedon charm. But he was directly involved only with the first episode. We'll see how it goes. Overall a solid, if not out-of-the-park, start. Didn't even notice the product placement! lol. So their little sneak was wasted on me. But then I wasn't the target market for that stuff anyway. Whatever. I accept it as part of the modern movie/tv industry. As far as intrusions go it is one of the relatively harmless ones.

I do have a question though. On IMDB they do not list one of the characters and I'm wondering who she was.

There was the kick ass Asian chick (aren't they all!). There was the fighting-the-man young cutie, that they won over to their side. There was the Simmons Brit character.

But there was a fourth woman. A leader type with shoulder length brown hair. Anyone know who she was?

TBH I don't really think of the Toy product placement as product placement. The world we are going into has just had all of these heroes appear recently, so of course people would be making toys of them to try and cash in on their appearance.

I must say, while I enjoyed the episode, the ending really does not sit well with me. They shoot the guy in the head and everyone's wearing a beatific job-well-done smile? I know they didn't kill him and it was a special bullet and all, but Coulson had talked him down and bought them a couple minutes before detonation. Was there any reason they couldn't have had him consent to being cured and have the scientist come in and give him a shot? Is there a reason, when Coulson and Michael had come to a non-violent resolution, they had to throw in one last bit of violence and have everyone act so happy about it?

Of course at first we didn't know it was a special bullet. I thought they took him down because he was just to unstable. They said he could destroy a whole city block if he went off. He was distracted long enough so a clean shot could be taken. As it turns out they had time to load the special bullet and not kill him in the process.

I understand what happened, I just don't see why it couldn't have happened differently. The way it played didn't work for me. Also, they were pressed for time -- was it really faster for them to get up to the balcony with the new gun than it would have been to walk in the front door to Coulson? It's not like they didn't know that Michael had calmed down -- they established earlier in the episode that they didn't need earpieces because they had DNA-mounted mics or some nonsense, so they were all privy to Coulson's conversation with him. But even if I was convinced that shooting the guy in the head was the best option, I still have a problem with how pleased everyone seemed -- I'd think the "crisis averted" happiness would be tempered by the fact that their best option was to shoot a guy in the head.

Colbie Smulders as Agent Hill may appear in other episodes in the future, depending on her time commitments to the final season of How I Met Your Mother. She will probably also be in the Avengers sequel.

As a huge fan of Joss Whedon I actually found this pilot episode a bit of a let down, compared to 2 other high profile American tv pilot episodes that I watched as well, both being much more interesting and captivating right off the bat, that being "Hostages" and "The Blacklist".

"Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" cast is a bit of a bore and plastic, with the exception of Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson. In fact, whole episode was a bit stale and plastic feeling, never really grabbing me. Yes, there were the usual Whedon throwaway lines and funny moments, but generally speaking I was a bit bored. I am though will give this show time to develop and hopefully the chemistry between the characters will increase.

Haven't seen Hostages, but I thought Blacklist was just as goofy as S.H.I.E.L.D., albeit in a different way. I agree that there's plenty of room for improvement in S.H.I.E.L.D., but how long can Spader single-handedly carry his entire show and concept?

I'm with you, Tom. I love Whedon, but the pilot for S.H.I.E.L.D. just didn't do much for me. I'll still watch a few more episodes hoping it will improve. I thought The Black List was great and am intrigued as to where Hostages will go.

Well the second episode didn't get any better. It feels more like The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew hour opposed to Mission Impossible. I don't see this series lasting long. But don't miss the last minute. It was the best part of the episode!

Yeah, second episode wasn't great. Here's hoping they can quickly move past the team-building phase and get some interesting ops. Also the way they plugged the hole was even more preposterous than most of this season's TV so far. I still enjoy this more than Blacklist and Hostages, but for my money Sleep Hollow's where the season's at so far. More preposterous than all the others combined -- which is to say: very! -- but it embraces its goofiness, manages to get in some surprising smarts where it counts, and is so far being very good about moving the character relationships forward rather than drawing them painfully out.